Just finished Al Gore’s new book The Assault on Reason. As previously mentioned, he could have used a stronger-willed editor. The book was about twice as long as it needed to be. Half of that unneeded verbiage was repetitive (though entirely valid) railing on George W. The other half was re-stating things that had already been well stated.
Still, he has a lot of really valid and valuable points:
* If we’re going to have a functional democracy, it must rest on a well informed, deliberative process at all levels, starting with the public. Individual citizens need to hash out and work through issues with their friends and neighbors. In other words … we have to pick up our responsibility as citizens. We need to re-habituate ourselves to critically evaluating public issues, and (more important) to pushing our ideas back upstream to our representatives. Their representatives in the legislature need to listen to us, to each other, and to make their arguments public.
* Television is great for distributing propaganda, but totally useless for allowing a dialogue. Television is the primary medium used to obtain votes. Therefore, elections are not about reason, they’re about effective manipulation. Duh, but he says it well.
* One of the concrete things that Gore proposes (though he admits that it has zero chance of happening) is to have the public, legislative debate on critical issues aired on prime time TV … with cameras showing the house and senate floor as well as just the guy who is speaking. This would encourage legislators to show up and listen to each other, and to respond directly to each other’s points, which might, just might, have the effect of stirring some public interest in actual debate rather than partisan hackery. The phrase “say it to my face!” comes to mind. I can’t imagine our representatives looking each other in the eye, on the senate floor, and treating each other the way I see them treat each other on the TV talk shows. Right now the congress is barely a legislative or deliberative body. They’ve abdicated that responsibility in favor of constant campaigning and party work … which is why we don’t see serious debate on important issues … which is why George W. has been able to act basically unimpeded.
The core point is that what is at stake here is nothing less than the viability of our democracy. Unless we can reverse current trends in public and legislative apathy … we will quickly be reduced to a nation of men (an unchecked executive) rather than one of laws. It is incumbent on the legislature to re-assert itself as a body of reasoned deliberation … and it is incumbent on the people (yes, even you and me!) to force them to do so by our active participation in public debate!
So therefore … ummm … what’s on TV again?
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